t’s that time of year! Camo Workshop, working throughout the long, dark, but not-really-cold winter is ready to once again unleash a hurricane barrage of new content and changes to both WinSPWW2 and WinSPMBT. As expected, not only do the patches include completely new content, but there are a host of revisions along with bug zapping, which is why these are much more than mere patches.

Before popping the lid off what these upgrades feature we’d like to take a moment to remind players that, as with every past upgrade, if you are involved in an ongoing secure PBEM game the game will FAIL if the upgrade is applied during the game. Please complete the game and then upgrade.

WinSPWW2 is being upgraded to version 5.0 and highlights of the upgrade include:

All 150-155mm standard artillery now have the same ROF. All towed artillery, both on and off map, has had ammo loads standardized by caliber.

OOB issues have been addressed, including corrections to German Shurtzen HEAT turret rear ratings, PzKw IV F Vorpanzer has been added, Bren Carriers were starting too early, and more.

Boyes ATR has been renamed to the more correct Boys. ATRs have been modified to be more of the properly harassing weapons than tank killers.

A number of anti-tank weapons had HE ammo instead of the more correct AP ammo.

Snipers can now target and destroy IEDs.

Code routine that calculates the number of turns in a game has been re-worked and now takes better account of wide and high maps.

A bug in the main code for regular and campaign games that affected defend battles for players with very large cores has been corrected. In the past if the core was near the maximum there would not be enough points available to assault a force that size. Now, if the core is too large to allow the proper ratio of attacker/ defender in a defend battle defend battles will be rejected and the game will select a different battle type.

Both games OOBs have been checked and standardized for the following items for ALL units in ALL OOBs in BOTH games:

Infantry size. ALL infantry units that are NOT scouts are now size zero if they are 4 men or under and scout units are size zero at 6 men and under. The rest are size 1.

Hand grenades have been standardized at 2 grenades per man for regular line infantry, 3 grenades per man for elite or specialist infantry like Paratroops and 1 grenade per man for second rate units like militia or partisans.

Infantry rifle and LMG ammo has been standardized to a scheme mechanically determined by code, not whim, and has been applied to all applicable units. If, for example, Nation A has a section with 9 men it , every other 9 man section will have the same rifle and LMG ammo. Elite or second-rate classes may have a few more or less than a regular.

Infantry speed checks were made for cavalry =speed 12 , bicycles=speed 9 and infantry limited to 6 movement points max. if not a scout. Swim speed checks were done for infantry with all reset to 0 except for a very few specialist frogmen which are now swimspeed =1. Cavalry was standardized at swimspeed=1.

Survivability- This field has been zeroed for any Infantry , off-map artillery, or aircraft and helicopter classes that may have had a rating applied over the years for units in these classes do not use this rating.

Heat armor- If HEAT armor was less than steel for any facing the error was corrected.

Problems with close range Z fire scattering too far have been resolved. Firing at 3 hexes or less, even blind fire with no LOS, will not scatter onto the firing unit or stray wildly from the target hex .

Destroyed or damaged core units now do not add back their full cost if their core formation is deleted. They will only return their cost minus the damage inflicted. Previously, if your core unit was worth 250 points for example and it was totally destroyed (0) or damaged (-110 damage points for example) then deleting the formation gave you back the full undamaged value of 250. This gave you "Free money" for destroyed or damaged units. With the current code, you will get 0 points returned if your formation is completely destroyed and any damage points will be deducted if it is just damaged

winSPWW2 is a fully upgraded and upgunned modification of the SSI classic Steel Panthers series. Developed by Camo Workshop (whose history stretches back over a decade) and published by Shrapnel games, winSPWW2 is the classic tactical wargamer's dream title.

Featuring combined arms warfare from 1930 until 1946, the game literally boasts hundreds of scenarios to keep the armchair tank commander occupied for a very, very long time (and with the ability to create your own scenarios add another very to that last part). In fact, with the latest added scenarios the count is now over 400 scenarios. Even if you only play one scenario a week it would take you nearly eight years to play them all! For gamers looking to experience sturm und drang without the need for tabletop space or tackleboxes filled with counters, winSPWW2 fits the bill nicely, whether playing against the computer or a human opponent.

winSPWW2 is available either as a FREE download or purchasable as an Enhanced Edition (which itself is available as a download or a physical CD). Wait, if there's a free version why pay for play? Well, it's not called Enhanced because it responded to those spam emails everyone gets. The Enhanced Edition offers players more options for secure tournament play, more robust map editing, higher resolutions, and more. Check out what the Enhanced Edition provides on the same page where you find the upgrade patch.